But the World isn't Split
by hauntedlittledoll
Summary: Title taken from J.K. Rowling's "Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix." Billionaire and amateur artist, Bruce Wayne, struggled to connect with his newfound son until the circus came to town. Graphic Novel 'Verse.


_"Yes, but the world isn't split into good people and Death Eaters."_

_- Sirius Black; Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix_

* * *

The dark sweeping sillouhette across the moon brought to mind the figure of a giant bat. Below, there were the brightly lit skyscrapers of Gotham, and gothic typefaces.

"Master Bruce?"

The billionaire looked up guiltily, and then gave a rueful smile to the old butler. "Sorry, Alfred, I got distracted." He surrendered his prize. "Remember this?"

Alfred turned the pages delicately. "Ah, yes, the adventures of the 'Bat-Man.' I always thought you might publish it one day."

"Too dark," Bruce countered easily.

"Something easily remedied with a touch of colour, I should think, Master Bruce," Alfred offered, returning the homemade comic book. The butler had a way with vague omnipotent suggestions; after all Alfred had somehow managed to raise Bruce without interference through the mere power of suggestion.

It had been Alfred's idea to channel the teenage orphan's angst into something constructive, but the Detective was a bit much for the average reader. The work had been packed away with college memorbillia long ago, and Bruce had turned his artistic endeavors into the odd engineering project for Wayne Enterprises.

He didn't have much time for even that these days. His ten year old son was a full-time job.

Bruce still wasn't sure how he had gained custody of Damian. He may be a billionaire, but the al Ghul family didn't count their worth in the amount of money they possessed . . . rather in terms of the favours owed. His ex-wife had kept her family secrets, but Bruce knew enough to grasp the shady nature of her father's organization. Not even Bruce Wayne's lawyers could win every battle.

No, Talia had given him their son, and Bruce couldn't be sure why.

"Father, I have found nothing of value, so if we may leave this task to the help as I suggested in the first place, I would like my dinner."

Alfred cleared his throat. "As much as your confidence in me strengthens an old man's heart, Master Damian, I'm afraid that not even I can clean out an attic and prepare a meal simultaneously."

"Good try, Damian." Bruce got to his feet, hauling the box of old university papers with him. "Start boxing up the books, please." He settled his load in the pile denoted for removal, and gave the butler his most winning smile. "We can handle this, Alfred, if you wanted to get a headstart on dinner."

Alfred smiled bemusedly, not believing in his charges for one moment but willing to humour them. "Very well, Master Bruce, and good luck." With a final reassuring pat to the younger man's shoulder, Alfred excused himself from the attic.

Bruce shifted a box of loose photos in the direction of the pile to keep, and watched his son aggressively stack books by size in the designated cartons. Despite Damian's poor manners, the boy had a solid work ethic. His teachers gave Bruce an earful at each conference regarding Damian's behaviour and attitude, but had no complaints over the boy's schoolwork. When deprived of an audience, Damian could and would complete any task with minimal fuss.

Overall, Bruce suspected that his attempts at Father-Son bonding would go over better if only Bruce's presence was not required.

Still, Bruce persevered, Damian did like to draw-mostly cats and cars, but it would be something that Bruce could share with his son.

"Damian, I'd like to show you something."

* * *

"I take it that young Master Damian demonstrated little patience for superheroes?" Alfred teased gently, as he rescued the discarded material from the floor of Bruce's office much later that evening.

"My action poses-if not anatomically inaccurate-are virtually useless in a fight," Bruce acknowledged, as he set his pencil down. Damian would know, having been trained in various martial arts from the moment he could stand. As an adult, Bruce could acknowledge that criticism. As an artist, he now felt compelled to prove himself to a ten year old. "He also thinks that I have an unhealthy obsession with the colour black."

Alfred made a disapproving noise, and smoothed the sketches across the bulletin board across the room. "As Master Damian prefers to live in a glass house, he should perhaps exercise a bit more caution in throwing stones."

Bruce gave a small grin, buoyed by the butler's sympathy. "I guess it's a little silly-some guy in a cape swooping in to save the day whenever something goes wrong?"

"It is not 'silly,' Master Bruce. Have you forgotten that your Bat-Man originally came from your very real need for a hero in your life?"

The echo of a gunshot-so much louder than it had ever seemed on TV.

The pearls of his mother's broken necklace scattering across pavement.

"It is not an easy thing to grow up in a city like Gotham, Master Bruce," Alfred pressed. "Some people could use a hero at times. Even young Master Damian."

Bruce snorted.

Alfred ignored that error in judgement, and withdrew a few crinkled sheets of paper from the inner pocket of his jacket. "I took the liberty of rescuing these sketches from the young master's rubbish," Alfred added casually, pinning Damian's work next to Bruce's.

Bruce lurched out of his seat. "What is that?"

Alfred gave an amused smirk. "I believe, Master Bruce, 'that' would be a flying Batmobile."

* * *

From the very first appearance of the Joker in Bruce's sketchbooks, Alfred had promised the younger Wayne-heir that there was no reason to fear clowns.

Alfred had lied. There was every reason to fear clowns.

For an evening that had begun promisingly with the opporunity to annoy Damian and the promise of sticky sweet cotton candy, everything had rapidly gone to hell in a handbasket.

Not even the circus is sacred in Gotham.

The outing had been Alfred's idea-a perfectly normal Father-Son outing that doubled as an excuse to get them out of the Manor while Alfred performed damage control on the attic.

It had been just as awkward as Bruce had predicted. Aside from a few brief moments spent communing with the giant cats and a barely-averted prison-break, Damian's boredom was infectuous. Bruce almost brought up the flying Batmobile in revenge.

Now, he could only wish he was arguing comic book physics with his ten year old son on the way back to the Manor.

Bruce was used to being a hostage. It had come with being a billionaire, and Alfred had trained him from an early age on how to react to such situations.

. . . but Bruce would give anything to have not been sitting in an audience and powerless as a family plummeted to their death on faulty equipment. He would give everything to not have Damian at his side as four lives were snuffed out and a fifth in imminent crisis.

Damian seemed to be handling the tragedy well. He had pushed away Bruce's smothering concern and led the way to the smaller tents set aside for the police investigation. Other children sobbed and clung to their parents; Damian had cordially greeted the Drakes and secured their ability to leave with young Timothy in the same breath that he had used to detain Commissioner Gordon.

Only Damian would have taken note of a circus employee working alone with all the distracting enticements of the circus attractions at hand. Only Damian would bother to memorize the plate numbers of the motorcycle that the man had left upon between acts. Only Damian would assume the information pertinant.

Now the commissioner was throwing around phrases like "foul play" . . . "extortion racket" . . . and "reckless endangerment." Because Damian had been right. His story was collaborated by the Ringmaster and the youngest acrobat-the only member of the family not in the air when the ropes gave way.

The only witness aside from Damian to see the man's face.

Alfred had raised him a gentleman, but Bruce had few scruples when it came to protecting his son. If the money could not guarantee his son's safety, then it was of little use to Bruce. He'd remodel the whole damn precinct if necessary, and made such open-ended promises to the commissioner in hopes of getting a protective detail assigned to Damian's school if not the Manor itself.

Bruce was so devoted to his cause, that he probably wouldn't have noticed Damian's quiet trek across the tent if it hadn't been so out of character for his son. Even then, Bruce could only stare in silence as Gordon took advantage of the opportunity to escape.

Damian came to a standstill less than a foot from the newly-orphaned boy. He looked down, and the acrobat looked up. Eye contact was made, held, and it was uncanny how alike they seemed. Blue eyes, dark hair, tanned skin, upturned noses, close in age . . . they could be brothers.

"I can help you get revenge, Robin," Damian offered quietly after a long moment of silence.

Bruce flinched instinctively; Damian either hadn't known or didn't care that the name on the posters was a stage name only.

Dick Grayson didn't correct him. "You," scoffed the other child, clutching the blanket around his shoulders. "What could you do?"

To Bruce's surprise, the first thing out of Damian's mouth was not his name. It was not an assumption or an order. Instead, Damian crouched to the other boy's level, adding his own jacket to the layers of protection that the various circus performers had woven around their littlest member. Then he sat back on his heels, and regarded the red fabric blankly.

"My father is very rich," Damian provided with more patience than he has ever shown another child. "My mother is very powerful," he continued, with more respect than he has ever paid another human being. Then Damian gave a very small smirk. "And I can be very mean."

Dick stared at Damian in an astonishment that almost sent Bruce scurrying in to spirit Damian away. Habit, really, considering Damian's reputation at school and the number of disapproving figures willing to tell Bruce how poor a job he was doing as a parent. The average child was not prepared for Damian; a new orphan could not be expected to respond positively-

"What do you want in return?" Dick continued to surprise Bruce.

Damian stood again, straightening his shirt and dusting off his pants unnecessarily before offering his hand in imitation of Bruce closing a business deal. "An ally."

There was a split second there in which Bruce could see his Bat-Man overlaying his son. He could see in Damian the grim figure still sorting out right from wrong while protecting the innocent. He'd always imagined the Bat-Man solitary and alone as Bruce had been.

"Too dark," the publishers said. "In need of colour," according to Alfred.

Like the boy in the borrowed red jacket reaching up to take his son's hand.

The firm shake turned into a hand off the ground, and the mental image of the detective shattered when the boys stood at exactly the same height. "Screw that," Dick muttered in the face of everything he had suffered that evening from his parents' death to Damian's offer. "You clearly need a friend."

Bruce fought a smile of his own as he turned to once more pursue Commissioner Gordon. He had a protection detail to organize, child services to persuade, private investigators to hire, and an ex-wife to contact.


End file.
